Explore some of Dogen Zenji best quotations and sayings on Quotes.net - such as 'Understand clearly that when a great need appears a great use appears also; when there is a small need there is small use; it is obvious, then, that full use is made of all things at all. Eihei Dogen Zenji (1200–1253) left Japan to study in China and then brought Zen Buddhism back to his own country. The seminal philosophical force of Japanese Soto Zen, Dogen Zenji is revered today for the clarity of his insights, for his passion, and for his poetry.
Dōgen Zenji is revered in Japan as the founder of Sōtō Zen.
Dōgen Zenji is revered in Japan as the founder of Sōtō Zen. He is ranked as one of the great religious philosophers. Born in 1200, he was responsible for bringing one of the main streams of Buddhist thought from China to Japan. The Sōtō Zen school he founded is still one of the important Buddhist traditions in Japan.
Beginning in the 1960s with teachers such as Shunryū Suzuki Roshi (founder of the San Francisco Zen Center), Dainin Katagiri Roshi (founder of the Minnesota Zen Meditation Center), and Hakuyu Maezumi Roshi (founder of Zen Center of Los Angeles), Dōgen’s spiritual descendents began to appear in the United States. Generation after generation, his writings have continued to influence Zen practitioners of all schools.
Modern scholars have “discovered” Dōgen during the past 30 years and have been considering how his writings are applicable to today’s world. Through the work of people such as poet and writer Gary Snyder, Dōgen’s writings have influenced the practice of “deep ecology,” a social movement and philosophy dedicated to ecological principles based on interdependence.
View the many works by Dogen available in English translation today on Amazon.
Dogen Zenji Shobogenzo
Dogen Zenji, 1200 -1253, was born in Japan and entered the priesthood at the age of twelve. He studied Tendai Buddhism on Mount Hiei but, finding the teaching there unsatisfying from the religious point of view, went to Kyoto where he studied Rinzai Zen under Myozen, a pupil of Eisai, founder of Rinzai Zen in Japan. He left for China, with Myozen, in 1223, again because he could find no real depth in the Rinzai teachings. He studied much in various temples in China, eventually receiving the Transmission from the Abbot of Tendozan, Tendo Nyojo Zenji, and returning to Japan in 1227. He stayed for a time at Kenninji, in Kyoto, but left there, since he felt that he was not yet competent to teach, in order to retire to a small temple; here he commenced his now famous writings. He became the first Abbot of Koshoji, in 1236, and was offered the opportunity to become the founder of Daibutsuji, later Eiheiji, by Hatano Yoshihige: he died in Kyoto. He is known in Japan either as Eihei Dogen Zenji or by his posthumous title of Koso Joyo Daishi.
Dogen Zenji brought with him from China both the Transmission and the teachings of the Soto Zen Church of Buddhism. This Church, which is the oldest of all the Zen Churches (both the Obaku and Rinzai Churches are derivatives), is perhaps the only Church of Mahayana Buddhism to retain some of the original Indian elements of Hinayana Buddhism. There is no doubt that Dogen’s way was, and still is, hard to follow, for he was a somewhat puritanical mystic, but there is equally no doubt that he inspired Japanese Buddhism with a new spirit. His major works are Shobogenzo, Eiheikoroku, Eihei-shingi, Gakudo-yojinsho and Kyojukaimon. The Kyojukaimon is essential if one would understand the moral training and the scope of Soto Zen teaching.
Reprinted with permission from Zen Is Eternal Life, by Reverend Master Jiyu-Kennett. Shasta Abbey Press, 1999.
Dogen Zenji Uji
For a more detailed account of Dogen’s life and importance in our tradition, go to this article from the Journal of the OBC.
Dogen Zenji Quotes
To get sense for Dogen Zenji’s teaching, we have included a work called the Shushogi, or, “What is Truly Meant by Training and Enlightenment”.